


Burning Up And Out

by notquitewitches



Category: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Blood, Death, F/M, M/M, Nightmares, Self-Destruction, Violence, alex and magnus can be read as romantic or platonic is the same, i think that's all tell me if you need smth else tagged, just a bunch of sad things, kind of, not really dw no one is dying, they appear really briefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 23:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14603850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquitewitches/pseuds/notquitewitches
Summary: "He’d been dead for almost two years. That meant almost two years of daily training in deadly combat and you could add to that the damned quests he had had to go on. You’d think he’d be an okay warrior by now. Except that he wasn’t and if the quests had proved anything, it was that he was downright the worst einherji ever. He had to thank his friends if he had survived for so long.Maybe, though, maybe he could change that."





	Burning Up And Out

 

It started with a dream. Or nightmare. They were worth the same, Magnus didn’t know how to tell them apart anymore.

He was in a field. It looked a bit like Valhalla’s war field and a bit like the place where Ragnarok would take place. There was no one around, no noise beside the quiet whisper of the breeze. He was alone in the middle of it, searching the bleached colors of the landscape for clues. He was suddenly aware of Jack in his hand, unfamiliarly heavy and quiet. He looked at the blade, checking that it really was his sword, but it looked exactly like Jack. He registered only for a brief second that it wasn’t real, none of it. That second was pushed away fast as the field was suddenly filled with people and voices and the loud sound of metal against metal.

Magnus winced hard at the unexpected noise and his his back against someone else. He turned his head, alarmed, and found himself surrounded by his friends ruthlessly fighting against faceless creatures pouring over them like waves. His breath was trapped in his lungs, his mind whirred as fear took over the logical part of him. He kept turning on himself, anxiously watching the monsters get closer and closer without being able to fend them off. He realized soon he didn’t need to, they never got close enough to aim for him, but that was only because his friends were killing them as they arrived. And Magnus was doing nothing at all.

Someone pushed into him, almost making him fall over. He raised his free arm to cover is face as he saw something sharp flash towards him, but it was promptly cut off by Alex’s garrote. She looked at him for the briefest of moments, eyebrows furrowed and blood splattered on her face and clothes, clearly disapproving of his uselessness. Magnus was paralyzed by terror.

Then they started to fall under the shiny claws. The first was TJ.

Magnus watched helplessly as his friend dropped to the ground, gasping for air as blood poured out of a deep gash on his throat. TJ stared at him, pleading him to do something, to help him, but he didn’t know _what._ Magnus thought he was going to be sick when his eyes glossed over, dead and dull.

He heard someone shout at him to raise his swords, _react_ , but he felt like he was filled with lead. He could barely tear away his eyes from his friend’s body. His arm was too heavy and he couldn’t physically life his unresponsive sword. He let out a strangled sound as the circle closed in around him again, fighting teeth and nail for another stolen minute of life.

Mallory was the second to leave them and she didn’t even have eyes to stare accusingly at Magnus. He started wishing for the monsters to come for him. He was a waste there, not even able to fight for his friend who were fucking _dying_ for him. Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult as the air thinned and was filled with the strong smell of blood.

Jack slipped out of Magnus’ grip, hitting the ground without sound. He couldn’t move he couldn’t move he couldn’t even bend down to pick up his sword or drop to his knees, giving up completely. He was stuck standing there like a really tasty prey for the horde of monsters playing with them.

Everything seemed to row louder and brighter. He just wanted it to be over already. He felt tears tingling his cheeks but he couldn’t even raise his hand to wipe them away. It all went downhill from there. Alex turned around with a feral look in her eyes, yelling something at him that Magnus couldn’t hear in the noise. He thought he saw fear where anger was supposed to be.

Behind him Halfborn screamed, then Magnus felt something hit him with enough violence to make him lose balance. As his knees buckled under him, he felt his insides rip apart. A metal point was poking out of his ribcage. His shirt was quickly becoming dark as blood poured out of the wound. He fell on his side like a ragdoll, breath ragged and vision blurred. The pain was so huge, it was as if it wasn’t there, but it made every inch of him shake violently. He slipped from consciousness with a sigh of relief.

-

He woke up in his bed gasping for air and drenched in sweat, blankets tightly tangled around his legs. He kicked them off forcibly, frustration making his post-nightmare panic grow and grow until it made him burst. He all but fell off his bed as he tried to get away from all the unpleasant sensations of rough cotton and the boiling hot mattress underneath him. He drew his knees close to his chest and buried his balms into his eyes, trying to get ahold of himself. He started shivering as the seconds passed and the adrenaline faded, leaving him exhausted and terrified. He cried silently until his gasps slowed down into wavering intakes of breath.

Was it a premonition? Was Ragnarok closer than they imagined? The mere thought threatened to pull him into another panic attack. Nonono don’t think about it, think about- think about- _fuck._

He took a shaky breath as he dropped his hands to his sides. He stared blearily at the wall in front of him, gritting his teeth as he attempted to convince himself he was okay. Spoiler: he wasn’t, but in his head denying it was a way to solve the problem.

He’d been dead for almost two years. That meant almost two years of daily training in deadly combat and you could add to that the damned quests he had had to go on. You’d think he’d be an okay warrior by now. Except that he wasn’t and if the quests had proved anything, it was that he was downright the worst einherji ever. He had to thank his friends if he had survived for so long.

Maybe, though, maybe he could change that. He should try, at least, to set aside the awareness of his flaws. He reached for the pendant on his bedside table and wished it into a sword, sighing. Jack appeared in his hands instantly, shining with his golden light and buzzing with energy. It felt nice to see it come to life, erasing the dull weight of the dream.

“What’s the matter, señor?”

“I should train,” he muttered, voice drained of emotion. He kind of hoped Jack would laugh it off, but the sword only made a noncommittal sound.

“Isn’t it three am?”

“Yeah, well, that means there’s no one around.” Magnus got up, ignoring the sword commenting on how it made no sense to start in the middle of the night. “I know I suck, Jack,” he said as he put on a shirt. The sword’s light blinked.

“So why now? You’ll still suck at eight today, plus you’ll be rested.”

Magnus scoffed at that, rolling his eyes.

“Because I have nothing better to do now,” he shrugged on a flannel and turned Jack back into a pendant, so he would not wake anyone while sneaking out.

He made it to the armory without accidents, walking on tiptoes close to the walls, holding the rune so tightly it left red marks in his palm. He picked up a random sword that looked similar enough to Jack and headed to the practicing field, his brain hyper-focused on the task at hand. He tuned out Jack’s vague complaints until he turned back into sword form and started grumbling about how offensive it was being replaced by an inanimate sword. Magnus could feel the start of a headache behind his eyes.

“Listen,” he said sharply, “You’re a floating sentient sword and I don’t have a fencing partner. Will you _please_ cooperate?” Jack buzzed in annoyance, but he didn’t add anything. “Thanks. I just want to practice without being in a life or death situation, can you help me with that?” he asked, softening his tone a bit.

Jack floated a bit higher, pointing himself against Magnus even if he clearly disagreed with what they were doing.

They started sharing light blows, just making metal clang. Magnus grew frustrated fast; Jack was evidently pulling his punches – or swings- and okay, he was terrible at sword fighting, but he knew the basics. He didn’t want to be babied either.

_What do you want, Magnus?_

He bit his tongue and played into the slow pace for another few minutes, actively ignoring Jack’s comments, muttered loudly enough so that Magnus could hear his disapproval. He tried to indirectly force Jack into putting more efforts in his defense, but the sword seemed not to notice the increasing frustration in each of Magnus’ movements.

Magnus stopped suddenly, hastily brushing his hair out of his face and shot a death glare to the sword.

“You’re not helping,” he shot accusingly, breathing through his teeth.

“I’m doing my best!” the sword protested, glowing in indignation. Magnus just stared at him.

“You’re not. Aim to kill me, maybe then it would be a decent fight,” he cut short, getting in position again. Death couldn’t get him in Valhalla, but it was all he was used to. He’d rather get hurt than pretend to be doing something.

Jack kept hesitating. It was starting to get on his nerves. He also started doubting himself even more. Was he really _that_ bad? He knew he lacked skills and practice, but he could hold his own for a little bit. Or could he? There was only one way to find out. He swore under his breath and attacked first.

Jack couldn’t do much more than swing in the air and block Magnus’ sword as well as he could. After the initial surprise, Jack got the upper hand quickly, forcing Magnus to take a couple of steps back to hold up against the force of the blows.

Magnus focused only on his hands, which would have been a huge mistake if he were battling another person, but he let it go. One thing at a time. He tried to anticipate Jack’s swings, but he was getting tired and the sword was too fast to do that.

He grimaced as Jack managed to graze his arms and he started pushing back more intensely, channeling all the anger and desperation from the nightmare into his movements. They kept sparring until Magnus’ arms started to hurt too badly and he could barely hold his weapon up. Only when Jack hit it and it fell out of his hands, Magnus stopped. He was bent in half and out of breath, staring at the sword blankly. A bit of a deja-vù from earlier, except that this was a better kind of exhaustion. His hair was sticking to his face and his muscles felt like jelly. He was far from satisfied, muted anger still boiled in his stomach, but he had to accept his physical limits, albeit begrudgingly.

“Happy now?” Jack asked, sounding exasperated. Magnus groaned, but didn’t answer, because he knew Jack wouldn’t have liked what he wanted to say. Instead, he decided to head back to his room, putting the stolen sword back in its place on his way there. He walked as fast as his sore legs  allowed him to, eager  to get back to the privacy of a locked door and not risk public humiliation at four am because Jack had decided to resume his karaoke role.

As soon as he closed the door behind himself, he let himself exhale. He closed his eyes, pointedly avoiding thinking about his surreal situation. He kicked his shoes off and got rid of his shirt as he walked towards the bed, dropping on it face-first. He hated it so much. All of it. His weaknesses and lack of skills and everything that made him not belong in that world of heroes on steroids. He crawled on the bed until he found the pillows and turned Jack back into a pendant. The second he put it on his chest, he passed out of exhaustion. He didn’t dream anything.

-

It went on like that for a couple of days, which turned into a week, which became two, and then a month.

At first he’d sneak out to the practice field, but after a while he just decided to steal a sword to keep in his closet, so when it was two in the morning and he couldn’t sleep, he could practice. The room was basically sound-proof anyway.

Some part of his mind recognized the fact that there was a bit of improvement since he had started, but most of the time he felt like it didn’t matter how much effort he put into it or how seriously he took combats during the day, he still couldn’t make progress. There were days –nights- that he would crawl to a corner of his room, overwhelmed by the insane expectations the afterlife and himself were putting on him.

Maybe it was the curse of being the son of the god of summer. He could not do war. After all, he did have the (useless) power of repelling every weapon around him. maybe he just wasn’t made for it, but in the end it didn’t matter. In Valhalla sword-fighting was held at the same level as literacy. Maybe even higher. Some nights he wanted to be just a little more dead.

Occasional flashes of a hypothetical Ragnarok kept him up when he tried to sleep. They were bloody and gory and terrible and he was always stuck. He could never help. Never do anything. Rationally, he doubted that was what was going to happen on Doomsday, but while he lived it, it terrified him.

One good thing had come with death and that was his friends. He wasn’t ready nor willing to give them up so easily. So he trained and he fought and he sought out the battle. He had been stabbed more times that he cared to admit, but it was okay with him. If that was the price to pay to deserve Valhalla, he didn’t care.

He thought no one would notice, because he thought there was nothing to notice. Stuck in his head with his repetitive thoughts, he almost forgot his friends were a caring bunch. But then again, he reminded himself sourly, his non-stop training was nothing to worry about.

More often than anything, while he pressed ice on his aching everything, he found himself wondering what the hell had gotten into him. He had used to hate exercising – he actually still did- but the feeling of utter doom and inadequacy pushed him further and further past his limits.

He just wanted to be good enough.

-

He felt so stuck in a loop and alone, he didn’t realize that Alex had understood something was up when she started tormenting him with grandmotherly comments.

“You didn’t eat a thing” and “you’re slouching” and “you look dead, like, deader than usually” and “are you even sleeping at night”.

Half the time Magnus had a snarky response ready, the other half he was too tired to even keep his eyes open. He guessed it didn’t do any good to his claims of being okay, but Alex never pressed the matter, so he didn’t try to make up excuses.

The weirdest feeling was the surprise as his efforts seemed to temporarily pay off. After a few months, it hadn’t gone to waste, he hadn’t brutally died in the first thirty minutes of battle in a while. He almost wanted to be proud of that. Still, every time he accidentally lost his pace or his luck turned away, he was reminded of how he was not there yet.

More and more and more but it didn’t seem to amount to anything satisfying and Magnus feared it would never.

It was easier to stay up and fight an invisible enemy than risk dreaming again, anyway. So he was doing it again, sparring against Jack, who had slowly warmed up to the new activity, in the middle of his room, sleep forgotten.

He was so focused on blocking Jack’s attacks, he didn’t notice the movement behind him.

“Breaking curfew doesn’t fit your golden boy aesthetic,” someone said suddenly and Magnus almost jumped out of his skin, turning towards the voice with his sword held high. It was just Alex, he realized with relief, Alex and his signature smirk.

“There’s no curfew in Valhalla,” he replied confusedly, relaxing his shoulders and stepping out of the fighting stance.

“No, but I’m pretty sure three am is no time to do _that._ You should be sleeping.” Alex walked towards him, uncrossing his arms.

“Yeah, well, you’re up too, so you can’t judge.”

Alex walked towards him with a look much softer than usually. It was quite eerie.

“How are you holding up?”

Magnus shrugged dismissively, closing his eyes. He really didn’t know how to answer that.

“When is the last time you slept?” Alex put his hand over Magnus’, gently forcing his fingers to unclench from around the sword’s hilt. He let it fall to the ground. Magnus stayed silent for a couple of seconds, his brain rewinding his memories to remember the answer. It was blurred at best.

“Last night? Maybe?” he smiled sheepishly, trying to diffuse the tension. All nights seemed the same, there was no difference between the day before and a week ago. Alex stared at him with a mix of accusation and worry in his bi-colored eyes.

He stalled, looking like he wanted to say something, but not knowing how. Magnus waited patiently; he stood close enough to him to feel his warmth and scent and he suddenly realized how much he missed this. Alex.

“Will you talk to me?”

Magnus didn’t answer straight away. He struggled to get his words out, so he just stared at Alex, surprised, mouth hanging open. So much for talking.

“Yeah,” he whispered, barely audible.

“Good, because you don’t look sunshiny and all anymore and that’s morally wrong.”

Magnus half laughed at that. Almost. He shot Alex a fond look.

“Yeah, I know I look like shit, blame it on the lack of sleep,”

“You said it, not me.” Alex took him by the hand and dragged him to the bed, flopping down on it and taking him down too. Magnus tried not to crush Alex under him, but he didn’t have the reflexes to put a hand out. Alex didn’t even wince, though, and Magnus was once again reminded how much stronger than he looked he actually was.

Magnus remained still, lying on top of Alex with his arm uncomfortably trapped between their chests. He felt heat creep up his face at the sudden awareness of all the physical contact. It was almost overwhelming. He immediately rolled off the other with little grace, waking up the dull soreness of his bruises. Alex looked a bit too amused at his movements. He just averted his eyes, attempting to find some peace, although it was quite difficult with Alex’s eyes burning through his skull.

“So?”

He scowled at himself for hoping that that moment wouldn’t come.

“What’s wrong?” Alex insisted.

Magnus wished he could shrink into the size of a speck of dust and disappear.

“I’m tired,” he muttered, trying to fill the heavy silence.

“I can see that.” A corner of Alex’s mouth turned up in a half smile half pout.

“Of being useless.” His voice sounded defeated. He felt like he had lead in his eye sockets. Alex turned to lie on his side, but Magnus didn’t move his eyes away from the ceiling. At least not until Alex’s hand sneaked over his and started to distractedly play with his fingers. An unspoken _I’m listening._ They weren’t big on words.

Magnus tried to find a point where to start, something to say, but his thoughts quickly derailed. He wished Alex knew sign language a bit better, it’d be all easier. He exhaled slowly.

“You know how we’re supposed to be warriors?” he said at length, furrowing his brows as he tried to focus. “And you surely are, I mean, all of you. You all had honourable deaths, you’re all so strong and skilled and you all somehow fit in the grand scheme of Ragnarok, you know?” he studied Alex to catch his reaction, but his face remained distant and serious, so not like him at all. He forced himself to continue.

“But me? I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here. I don’t have a _thing_ , I’m surprised I’ve even survived this long. You can hardly say I can fight.”

Alex was looking at him now, eyes wide and hesitating. He couldn’t hold his stare for long. Alex whispered his name in disbelief and anguish and it meant ‘why’, it meant ‘stop’, it meant ‘you’re scaring me’. Magnus couldn’t blame him. he closed his eyes and let words roll off his tongue, untamed, unfiltered.

“Considered all of that, I thought, why not make _me_ myself? Why not try to catch up on everyone else? It wouldn’t hurt to try. What’s the worst case scenario? Nothing changes and I stay an useless einherji? I’m tired of feeling so… pathetic.”

That word dropped like a stone. It carried a mountain of hatred and scorn, it made his voice turn bitter and sharp. He didn’t have anything else to say, so he shut his mouth, clenching his jaw hard. He waited for Alex’s response, somewhat anxiously.

It would have been the right moment for a dramatic sigh, a heart broken voice, anything pitying and compassionate, but none of those things were Alex’s feelings of choice.

“That’s dumb. So dumb and wrong. I will fight you on that,” his eyes were ablaze and his words heavy with the need to say everything that was making him fume. “First of all, you are _not_ useless. You’re far from that. So far from that, you’re actually the polar opposite of that. I don’t think you realize-” his voice jumped to a pitch too high to carry and broke off. Alex stiffly sat up, crossing his legs and clenching his hands over his knees. “You might not be the best fighter the universe has ever seen, but you have something… I don’t know how to put it into words, Magnus, but without you we would have probably never completed the quests. Hell, without you, Loki would have started Ragnarok. So don’t try to tell me you’re useless when you’re so obviously not.”

Alex was downright enraged and stared him down fiercely, daring him to protest.

Magnus felt out of breath and his eyes burned with what he hoped weren’t tears. He exhaled shakily, Alex’s words echoing in his brain on a loop. He wondered about the raw belief of what he said. He really, really wished he wasn’t just peeking at it from behind the unmoving thought that he didn’t deserve it.

He looked up to Alex and the tears that had pooled up, spilled out, running down his temples and making him scrunch his face in disapproval. He wished he felt something. He almost wanted to reach out to touch Alex and see through his eyes, to find proof. He seemed to have understood that.

He tentatively lay back down, propping himself up with an elbow, his face unreadable as always.

“You know I’m going to make you see that, right? Even if it’s the last thing I do.” His voice was low and calm, the most serious Alex had probably ever been with him. “You deserve to be happy.”

Magnus just stared at his blurry figure, stuck between denying and nodding passively, in halfhearted agreement.

Alex didn’t look disappointed or annoyed or tired, just worried and determined, with was reassuring and much closer to the Alex he knew. It was comforting, recognizing familiar things.

He rested his head on Magnus’ chest, taking his hand back into his and intertwining his their fingers.

“Healers are so needed to life. War is optional and cruel. You shouldn’t break yourself over having a soft heart and hands that stitch together instead of tearing everything apart.” He spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. “Handling life is this close to being a god, I think. Just, you’re far better than any of those assholes.”

Magnus found the energy to laugh at that and rubbed away the drying tears from his face. Alex squeezed his hand, craning his neck to smile at him warmly.

“Thank you,” Magnus said, with much more sincerity than he thought he could put into his words. “I just wish I could really help when there’s a fight, instead of being live bait.”

Alex moved again, restless as always, to get on eye level with Magnus and, forgetting their minimal-touching implicit rule, to get closer to him.

“Have you forgotten you literally saved our asses multiple times? Halfborn told me some pretty impressive stories. Without your glowy powers, we would have probably bled out and died after the first step on Midgard. Shut _up,_ ” he put his hand on Magnus’ mouth with a stern look. “You’re better than the lot of us put together.”

Magnus made a show of rolling his eyes, but didn’t argue when Alex removed his hand to play with his hair.

“You should get more sleep,” Alex commented when Magnus had to choke back a yawn.

“What makes you think that?” he raised an eyebrow with playful sarcasm, even if everything about him screamed of exhaustion.

“Because I say so, shut your eyes or I’ll make you,”

Magnus complied, sighing in fake defeat. For the first time in too long his bed didn’t feel like jagged stones. Maybe he’d even manage to get some sleep. Wow, that surely would be surprising.

“Will you stay here?” he muttered when he felt Alex move again.

“Duh, you’re like a huge teddy bear, I’m not going anywhere.” Alex flung his arm across Magnus’ chest, pressing his nose against his shoulder. “And just as warm too, nice.”

Alex fell asleep fast, holding him in an octopus embrace, but he didn’t mind. He kept staring at the ceiling, dreading sleep just as much as any other time, but also struggling to keep his eyes open.

He let himself drift away, hoping that Alex’s familiar weight would be enough to anchor him there.

The dark stayed dark and it was okay. It was okay. He’d be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> yo hello sorry if this was sad, i use Magnus as a puppet to vent and some stuff has gone down, so this was the result. hope it wasn't too over the top, i kinda like angst, if you can't tell.  
> also if you happen to know me from fate will play us out, this^ is the reason why there's no new chapter yet, i'm lazy, uninspired and sad. but i promise i'll work more on it as soon as school stops torturing me!!  
> hope you enjoyed!  
> if you did or if you cried, comment, if you want, i'd love to hear your thoughts on this indulgent mess :D


End file.
